Begin Again
by iminyjo
Summary: A contemplation on Rick and Michonne's head space immediately post-Negan. (FYI - this was written before Season 7 premiered and presumed a different Lucille-victim).


Michonne cried for an hour that first night, that was all. Steeped in a hot bath, she closed and locked the downstairs bathroom door and let the waves of sorrow take her.

Then for the next week, she had chosen to be comforting. Subsuming her own anguish to do what was best, not only for Rick and Carl but for their whole shell-shocked group. They needed Rick back and it was alarming, the degree to which he had collapsed in on himself. In that moment, Michonne decided it was far more important to help him than to give in to her own anger and grief. So she was comforting. She chose to give Rick as much room to mourn as he needed, choosing to believe that it was the fastest route to his recovery.

Some time to heal seemed clearly like the best remedy, at first. Once upon a time, when she had first arrived to the group, Rick had also been in mourning. Yet, he had remained stoic yet pragmatic throughout, as they moved from one crisis to another. This time, she was confident would be no different. She had witnessed and had acknowledged that Rick had the capacity to harbor deep reservoirs of unresolved or spoken of pain. But she also realized, for those same reasons, he was susceptible to emotional breakdown.

Not that she could exactly judge, Michonne reasoned during that time. She had certainly had a couple of those herself. He just needed some time.

Still, by the next week, she was coaxing. Pleading with Rick to come back. If not to the group, to her, then at the very least to his children, who needed him desperately.

She'd watched as Carl grew obsessively focused on protecting Alexandria. He began neglecting his school work, skipping class, arguing with her about the need to "pretend anything would ever be normal again." Even Judith, cognizant that something was wrong, although her toddler brain couldn't fathom what, had grown fussy. Crying for her father in the night, needing constantly to be held in someone's arms as if she was regressing. Terrified of abandonment as small children tended to be in times of uncertainty. Rick's absence of thought, if not body, was being felt everywhere.

By then, Rick was sleeping in her old room, as if they were playing some game of musical bedrooms. His master bedroom near the children had somehow become hers alone. Michonne wasn't even sure when precisely it had happened. She'd just gone searching for him one night when she woke to find his side of the bed empty and found him weeping in her darkened room. At the time, she had just backed out quietly, unobtrusively. In retrospect, she wondered now if she shouldn't have gone to him and charged him to snap out of it. But instead, she'd sat by and allowed him to slip deeper and deeper into a crippling depression.

But that time was over. It had to be. There was too much to be done, too many fires to put out, too many questions needing answers and decisions that needed to be made. Could she do it herself? Yes, but with Maggie recuperating at Hilltop, Carol, God knows where and Daryl gone, each and every decision fell to her. Sasha and Abraham were great soldiers-field generals really- and Aaron and Father Gabriel gave good counsel, but the decisions she and Rick had come to make together were now left on her shoulders alone.

Still, ultimately it wasn't her leader or co-parent she needed back most. It was her love that HAD to return soon. It was the absence of her partner that had her sleeping on a moist pillow most nights. So that time, the time to be crippled by their immense loss had to be done with tonight, now.

Michonne came to the door and peered into the dim room. Carl and Judith were sound asleep. She'd deliberately waited until late, in case they really had to have it out. The whole house was still except for music she'd left playing in the baby's room to obscure any noise. She didn't intend on holding back now. The time for dulcet tones was long over. She was resolved, if she had to fight Satan himself tonight for her lover's soul that was what she intended to do.

"Rick?" Michonne called softly as she laid a palm on the door and it creaked open. She carried a small glass of water for him that she deposited on the nightstand.

There was movement on the bed. She moved to the window, drawing back the drapes to let in light from the big, bright full moon outside and opened it to provide some needed fresh air. The room was stuffy and maybe just a bit rank. Her nose scrunched slightly and the cool night air was oddly welcome.

It was funny, she thought then, how the mind and body adjusted to the circumstances.

Rick, a couple days unwashed, had never been an issue to her before. Similarly, there was now a hole in her heart where her friend, really her first friend in the group, had previously resided and was now absent. Yet, even now, she could feel the scar tissue forming, mending her broken heart. It was amazing what one could accommodate and how quickly, if necessary.

"Get up. We need to talk." She said shortly.

The lump on the bed shifted as Rick turned over to face her, the moonlight falling on his face. He hadn't been asleep, didn't look as if he'd been getting much of that. He looked awful- haunted, sallow, his eyes sunken into his head.

"No good has ever come of a woman sayin' that." He croaked, using his vocal chords for the first time that day.

It was good he was able to joke. She took comfort in that small something. He scooted over and allowed her some space at the edge of the bed.

"Rick, what's going on? Where are you? 'Cuz, you're not here."

He sighed heavily.

"Carl has taken shifts at the gate watch point, he's stopped going to school."

"It's not a real school anyway." Rick replied, sounding uncannily like his son.

Michonne blew out a harsh breath in frustration with both Grimes men.

"Rick, I thought we had agreed we'd give him a chance to be a kid again?"

"That was before. He needs to know how to defend himself and protect his sister."

"Rick!" She sighed in irritation. "That's what WE are for."

"We can't always be there. We won't always be here."

"But while we are, he gets to be a kid, dammit! And that means you don't get to do this! Check out. Not while people need you."

"I'm sorry. I just, I can't." He sat up finally so they were face to face. With his back against the headboard, some of his upper torso receded into the shadows, only illuminating a portion of his face and his hands resting in his lap. "Not anymore."

"People need you. Your kids need you…." She had a hard time keeping up their eye contact. Though they'd confessed and shared a lot of things with each other, this was still a difficult thing for her to admit. "I need you."

"I'm gonna get every one of you killed." He said with a quiet finality that suggested it was already a fact, that in his mind it had already happened.

Michonne was silent for a long moment. "Is that it? Is that what you think?"

"Not think. It was my decision to attack Negan-"

"Our decision." She cut him off. "We all agreed."

"But it was my idea."

"Is that how you remember it, truly?" She shook her head. "No, it wasn't. It was Daryl's."

She spoke grimly. It was difficult even saying his name out loud now. Like prodding a large, angry wound.

"Are you actually blamin' him?" Rick said offended on his behalf.

"No. No more than I'm blaming you. We ALL decided. Every single one of us. And we all paid the price."

"No, only he did." Rick's voice broke and she felt rather then saw as his shoulders began to shake with his sobs.

"No one blames you."

That seemed to hurt him more.

"I can't." He said again.

"Can't what?"

"Can't lose anymore of you. Not on my watch." Rick wiped his face roughly as if he was coming out of a stupor.

Michonne sighed.

"It can't be my responsibility anymore. It's too hard." He stopped suddenly then, again overcome.

Then, as if he'd just decided, he added, "And if you're smart, that'll be good news."

"No." She said simply. Unacceptable.

"Michonne, I can't keep doing it. Daryl was like my brother and he's gone. I just don't know how to keep doing this and losing people."

"Are you kidding me, Rick? Do you think you're alone? Do you even realize how lucky you are? How lucky you've been? I mean, besides you and the Greens, I guess you must think the rest of us hatched from eggs!" Michonne's anger bloomed fully formed.

"Eggs, what?"

"We've all suffered losses, numerous and unimaginable. Do you remember Glenn lost his parents and sisters? Rosita lost her whole family, Abraham lost a wife and children, I lost my son! This life now is loss!"

Michonne stopped herself from continuing. She knew her anger and maybe a small kernel of resentment was getting away from her. And it felt too self-serving to dwell right then. She took a beat to regroup.

"…But it's not only about that. You know that." She whispered, taking his hand in hers and intertwining their fingers. "There's a life here to have, a good one. If you still want it. That we can still have, even now, if you don't give up."

"Negan-"

"Fuck Negan." She said firmly. "We'll deal with him, you and me both, later. Right now, we have to to deal with this, keeping this together."

"Us?" He asked shakily releasing her hand.

"No, I told you. I'm with you, no matter what. I mean the community. People are scared, Rick. And you staying out of sight isn't helping. People need to know things aren't over. They need to know we have a plan."

"We don't."

"Not yet but we will." Michonne answered with the utmost confidence in not only him but herself.

They sat in silence as he seemed to digest what she'd said. Had she finally reached him?

He brought his knee up and rested his arm on it, shielding his face from her with his hand.

"I was so scared he would pick you or Carl." He said finally, speaking so quietly she almost didn't hear him. "It was only a minute or so but it felt so long. And in that time, I was doin' the Devil's arithmetic. Calculating who I could live without. Who Negan could take that wouldn't gut me…"

Michonne stayed silent and allowed him to work through it.

"…who he could pick that wouldn't feel as if he'd taken a part of me. I thought about Maggie and the baby and how she might not live without Glenn. And I thought about Sasha, who'd already lost so much recently. Funnily, I didn't even think about Daryl. He was already wounded, you know? I thought he was safe since they hadn't already killed him." Rick sniffled into his arm.

Michonne laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"I didn't even consider it."

"You weren't the only one. Do you think I didn't think that too? Didn't pray that it would be anyone but you or Carl? Even me instead? Do you honestly believe Abe wasn't hoping it wouldn't be Sasha or that Carl wasn't begging inside that Negan didn't pick you?"

She moved closer so that all he could see was her in front of him, crowding out the darkness and everything else.

"This is something I will never speak about again, but don't you think somewhere inside everyone did the exact same thing?" The tears were in her eyes now, her voice threatening to break as she whispered.

Anyone but them. She had pled to God, holding her breath as Negan's bat finally settled on a person. Anyone but them and she promised she could find a way to live with it.

Michonne knew after, even as she screamed and cried for her friend, that a small part of her had exhaled. And the guilt of that, she knew she would carry for the rest of her days.

She looked at Rick and hoped that it was all in her face because she didn't think she could ever bring herself to admit it aloud. Describing the feeling of utter relief she'd had in the midst of one of the worst moments of her life was beyond her.

Rick reached across and wiped the tears from her cheek with his thumb.

"It doesn't mean you didn't love him or I didn't. And it doesn't make us responsible. Negan did this. He has to pay. Not you or me. Him." Michonne said, her granite-like resolve returning.

"I don't know what I'm gonna do without him."

"I know."

"He was my brother," Rick repeated without the attendant sorrow of the first time. This time with a forcefulness and a resoluteness of tone."My right hand."

She nodded.

Rick leaned forward and touched his lips to hers tenderly, delicately as if he were seeing her for the first time. Michonne brought her arms up around his shoulders, hugging him. His arms hung limply at his sides for a moment before he slowly returned her embrace. Then he leaned back to look into her eyes.

He was back.

Even by moonlight she could see the white hot flame reigniting in his eyes. Indignation at the idea that Negan would dare to touch one of his family members, stoking the flame.

"But you and the kids are my heart. I can't lose you."

"No, you can't." Michonne looked in his eyes hoping he could read her utter confidence and trust in him.

"I can't promise to keep anyone safe…" Rick said sighing deeply with self-reproach.

"No, but we can try. All of us." Michonne promised. "And we can promise to protect what we've made here to our last. That's what he did. That's what, I think, he'd hope you'd continue. Break time's over, Grimes."

Michonne rose from her place on the bed extending a hand to him.

"Yeah, I think it is." He whispered, taking a deep breath and her hand.

"C'mon, let's go get started." She said pulling him back on to his feet at long last.


End file.
